The European Ocean Biogeographic Information System EurOBIS is an online marine biogeographic database compiling data on all living marine creatures. EurOBIS was developed in 2004 and originally received funding from the MarBEF Network of Excellence Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning which was carried out by the Sustainable Development, Global Change and Ecosystems Programme of the European communitys Sixth Framework Programme. The aims of EurOBIS are to centralize the largely scattered biogeographic data on marine species collected by European institutions and to make these data freely available and easily accessible. All data go through a number of quality control procedures before they are made available online assuring a minimum level of quality necessary to put the data to good use. The available data are either collected within European marine waters or by European researchers and institutes outside Europe.
The database focuses on taxonomy and occurrence records in space and time; all data can be searched and visualised through a set of online mapping tools. All data are freely available online and easily accessible, without requiring a login or password. The regional approach and thematic focus of EurOBIS - the European marine waters - gives the system a number of advantages compared to its umbrella systems OBIS and GBIF. Due to the specific scope of EurOBIS, the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) - the host institute of EurOBIS - can focus on the continuous gathering of additional data and information which cannot be captured in the data systems of e.g. OBIS and GBIF. The Flanders Marine Institute also invests in the development of relevant analysis tools and applications that can run on the EurOBIS data system. The existence, continuation and growth of EurOBIS is only possible by contributions of a whole range of data providers from all over Europe, and in the first place by the continuous support of the hosting institution VLIZ.
The aims of EurOBIS are:
To visualize global patterns of species distributions and biodiversity in space and time, both from a current and a historical point of view
To identify geographical, temporal and taxonomic gaps in our knowledge on species distribution information
To emphasize the importance of time series and comparative/integrated studies
To enhance the ability to test hypotheses on a larger scale than can be done based on individual datasets
The deliverables
Progress reports
December 2021
The development of a number of automated quality control procedures, which will help in the general assessment of the quality, completeness and fitness for use of the available occurrence records by the user.
December 2021
Develop procedures for the management and quality control of the captured data in cooperation with the international OBIS community.
December 2021
Further develop the link between (Eur)OBIS and WoRMS, with a focus on the taxonomy. All taxa present in (Eur)OBIS which are not yet present in WoRMS will be thoroughly screened and presented to the WoRMS taxonomic editors. In the end, each taxon name in OBIS should either be present in WoRMS, or an annotation should be given why the name cannot be added to WoRMS.
